Coaching Legend Dies

The Daily Sentinel

By Ken Bonner
The Daily Sentinel

Published February 19, 2007

Legends don't pass this way often.

Q.K. Carter, a man who became legendary as an innovator in Alabama high school basketball coaching ranks, died Friday at Highlands Medical Center in Scottsboro. He was 93.

"I can't say enough good things about Coach Carter," former Scottsboro High School Principal Ray Collins said on learning of the death of a man he coached against and worked with Friday afternoon. "He was a great fellow, a great coach and a great human being."

Collins, who taught and coached at Woodville before coming to Scottsboro, competed against Carter coached Paint Rock Valley (Princeton) teams. After battling it out on the hardwoods the two worked together for almost 20 years.

Carter, who never played competitive basketball, was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) Hall of Fame in 1993 in large part because his basketball teams at Paint Rock Valley High School (Princeton) and Scottsboro High School were ultra successful. In 42 years coaching his teams averaged 24 wins per season and compiled an overall record of 1,034-376.

Carter has been described in many different ways. Most agree he was a gentleman first, a winner next and then a disciplinarian whose quiet demeanor and scholarly attitude commanded respect.

Style set Carter's teams apart. In a day of slow-paced half-court basketball Carter coached teams ran it up and down the court at a frantic pace. It was a style he developed after studying the game seriously for years. It (basketball) became his second love.

"Dad believed in running. He wanted you to be able to run the whole 32 minutes," Carter's son Roger said. "Dad believed his team's won a lot of games because they just wore the other team down."

Eugene Harris, a 1973 SHS graduate who went on to play at Florida State University and today is the head coach at Smiths Station High School, agreed.

"We played fast paced basketball before a lot of other schools," he said. We went up and down the court at a high rate of speed and could have scored 110 to 120 points most nights."

Don Webb once scored 50 points in a game against Section playing Carter-Ball. He said, "Coach Carter taught you how to act when you did lose, which wasn't very often. He did get kind of tough on us every once in a while but he was a good influence and you remember what he taught you."

Harris, like most others, describe the soft-spoken Carter as a man of integrity.

"I was fortunate to play for a man who was fair. He was a good man and had a great relationship with all of his players."

"I never ever saw him use any profanity," former assistant Sam Hambrick said. "He was a great influence on a lot of boys. He was a first class gentleman and a great coach."

After retiring in 1975 Carter found he couldn't stay away from the game he loved. He was 88 when he sat on the bench and helped coach a game at Skyline High School for the last time.

Carter was at Geraldine for five years and then assisted Harold West at Skyline for another seven years. Both schools made it to the state tournament with him on the bench as did PRV and Scottsboro when he was the head man.

The 1967 SHS team is perhaps Carter's most remembered. The squad defeated Fayette County for the 3A state title, the only one of his career even though the teams he coached made 11 total trips to the big tournament.

At PRV when there was only one classification Robert Thrower was named state MVP even though the squad finished as runner-up. The same can be said for Wendell Nix at SHS.

Those who played for Carter remember him well. Two dribbles — no more — then pass it.

That's what he wanted, the basics. Pass it and move. Perfect the two-hand chest pass, block out and run your lane.

Carter's players could not only run, they could jump too. In the days before weight training was popular Carter used 16 pound medicine balls, 35 pound weight jackets, even galoshes to train with. And none who played will forget the line drill over and over that taught quickness, speed and staying low.

Before it became known as plymetrics Carter coached teams were doing it. Hopping up steps, jumping for bars and then from the floor to progressively higher boxes — time after time. When most teams had one or two players to "get the rim" Carter normally had five or six who could dunk it.

David Hurt who played for Carter at SHS and went on to Auburn University called Carter, "the best coach I've ever known and one of the great men. "

Webb described Carter as, "extremely intelligent."

After playing football at Jacksonville State University Carter taught biology at PRV and also served as principal at the school for a time.

"He was always a teacher not your critic," his son Roger said.

Mike Lineville, who played on Carter's 1967 championship team, put it simply, "I was fortunate to play on that championship team and to have the opportunity to play for coach for several years. We lost a great, a great coach — not just in basketball but in life too."

After playing for Carter in the Valley Hambrick assisted him for 18 years at SHS.

"It was a great relationship," he said of his time with Carter. "He was an outstanding person, a solid person."

Carter could take criticism, according to Hambrick. "He always took it with a grain of salt. He never let it bother him."

To his family Carter was a champion too.

His grandson, Daniel Carter, remembers spending time driving Coach to practice at Skyline and the times his grandfather watched him run at track and cross country practice. He was impressed by how others treated Carter.

"He (Coach) was always so calm. When he spoke — what he said was golden. People trusted it and believed it."

Carter was preceded in death by his wife of 61 years, Vivian, whom he met while teaching at PRV.

"She was the love of his life. He didn't mind telling anybody that," Roger said.

Even some not related by blood felt Carter was family.

"He was like a second daddy to me," former player and current SHS girls basketball assistant Charles "Bambi" Howland said on learning of Carter's death. "He was a great influence on my life and he was always there when I needed him."

Visitation services for Carter will be held today from 5 to 9 p.m. at Scottsboro Funeral Home. The funeral, scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 18 at 2 p.m., is to be held in the gym that bears his name, Carter Gymnasium, at the Page Administration Building on College Street in Scottsboro. Burial will follow in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Editor's Note: Sentinel Staff Writer Hollice Smith contributed to this article.